Der8auer, a star overclocker from Germany, has managed to set a new GPU frequency record with PowerColor's custom-designed AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card. With the help of liquid nitrogen cooling, the specialist managed to boost the clock rate of 6900 XT, which made our list of best graphics cards thanks to its 26.8 billion transistors, to a whopping 3,225 MHz.
While all 6900 XT-based cards are fast, PowerColor's LiquidDevil Ultimate Radeon RX goes above and beyond with a 16-phase VRM, three eight-pin auxiliary PCIe power connectors, and some liquid nitrogen. The board does not appear to have any clock speed cap, which is why it was possible to push it all the way to 3.225 GHz without modifying its VRM. Previous GPU overclocking records involved graphics cards with power delivery modifications or usage of K|NGP|N-branded boards with a configurable VRM.
(Image credit: der8auer)
When AMD introduced its Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT graphics cards about half of a year ago, users soon discovered that the company had capped the maximum frequency of the RX 6800 XT (Navi 21 XT) at 2.80 GHz and the maximum clock of the Radeon RX 6900 XT (Naxi 21 XTX) at 3.0 GHz.
More recently, unofficial sources said that AMD began to offer its partners its Navi 21 XTXH GPU with a higher frequency potential, yet it was not completely clear whether AMD binned the new processors itself, or just let its partners factory overclock them. ASRock and PowerColor indeed started to offer Radeon RX 6900 XT products with a maximum boost clock of up to 2,500 MHz, up from 2250 MHz maximum boost clock that AMD recommends for its Radeon RX 6800 XT & RX 6900 XT products.
(Image credit: PowerColor)
As it turns out, the Navi 21 XTXH silicon is a real thing, though looks like its main difference from the regular Navi 21 XTX GPU is the absence of a frequency cap.
Overclocking databases, such as HWBot.org, do not keep GPU frequency records, though a quick check with overclockers actually indicates that der8auer has indeed managed to set the new world's GPU frequency record as no graphics processor has ever hit a clock significantly higher than 3.0 GHz.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
I love that we can take the clock speed as accurate but ignore the 65000 deg temp that far exceeds the boiling point of any substance known to man
Looks like a 16-bit unsigned integer has been used to store GPU temp somewhere in the reporting chain (perhaps due to an assumption that GPU temp would not be sub zero); 65487°C would equate to -49°C if that was the case.
